The Family You Choose
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. Friends are the family you choose, they say. These four friends have no family...except for each other. No pairings.


**Author's Note: I wrote this for a DA Risembool Rangers contest (and didn't win, in case you were wondering). The prompt was "Family," and obviously the first thought in my mind was to write about some _actual_ family members. But I felt like branching out a bit, so I decided to explore something that I'd thought of the Tsubasa characters from time to time. This is meant to happen at some point when they're still traveling around from world to world, before everything explodes into chaos. But there _are_ major spoilers for every character's backstory, so be forewarned.**

It was always exciting, and a little nerve-wracking, every time the waves of Mokona's magic collapsed around them and they found themselves in a new world. What kind of place would they end up in this time? What hardships would they have to endure in their search for the next feather?

Timidly, Sakura opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she would find this time. She was surprised to find herself almost nose-to-nose with a man dressed in flamboyant, brightly colored clothes, wearing facepaint and a bright orange wig. "Welcome to the Fall Family Festival!" the man cried in an overly jovial tone.

"My, my," Fai said, smiling brightly as always. "We seem to have come to quite a boisterous world this time."

Sakura looked over the man's shoulder and saw that they were on the edge of a little village comprised entirely of tents and booths, all of them in cheerful colors with streamers and flags fluttering in the crisp autumn breeze. People moved from tent to tent, all of them laughing and chattering excitedly. Strains of music and enticing aromas filtered towards them. "A festival?" She grinned. "That looks like fun!"

"Looks like a waste of time to me," Kurogane growled, glowering at the man standing at the entrance, who merely smiled serenely back.

"Can you sense the feather, Mokona?" Syaoran asked the tiny white creature in his arms.

Mokona scrunched up his little face and said, "A little bit. I think it's coming from in there." He pointed towards the festival.

"Looks like that settles that," Fai said cheerfully. "To the festival!"

Sakura started forward eagerly, but stopped short when Kurogane huffed, "I don't see why we all need to go in. Just send in the princess and the puff ball and they can find the feather on their own."

The man at the entrance spoke up as Kurogane turned away. "Only families may enter the Fall Family Festival! This is a time meant for families to enjoy quality time together, and grow in their appreciation for each other. Therefore, it's our custom to tie a ribbon between all of your wrists, so that you will move together as a cohesive _unit._" He held up a bundle of long red ribbons that fluttered in the breeze.

"This is stupid," Kurogane announced, glaring around at them all. His gaze landed finally on Sakura, and his frown deepened before he turned on his heel and crossed his arms. "But I guess there's nothing for it if the princess's feather's in there."

"Come now, Kurgie-poo," Fai said gently, accepting a ribbon from the man and tying one end around Kurogane's wrist. "We can't let the children see their Papa being a grumpy-pants."

"Oh, shut up, wizard," Kurogane growled, refusing to look at any of them.

In a few minutes, they were all strung out at even intervals along the red ribbon—Kurogane taking the lead, followed by Fai, then Syaoran, and Sakura at the rear. Mokona snuggled up in Sakura's hood, keeping up a happy stream of chatter in her ear as they entered the festival.

Sakura wished she had about five more pairs of eyes. She tried to take in everything: the bursts of music and movement within each tent as they passed, the strangely dressed performers dancing through the crowds, the vendors at a dozen stalls calling out their wares. But most of all, she found herself watching the groups of people wandering through the festival, connected by the red ribbon around their wrists.

Some of the groups were large and cumbersome, children pulling every direction at once and trailing grandparents with them. Others were couples walking hand-in-hand, or parents carrying small children in their arms. But everyone seemed so _happy,_ even when they stumbled against each other or were tugged along by the ribbon tying each other together. Sakura smiled as she passed a group of five young men so alike they had to be brothers, laughing uproariously as they tried to untangle their ribbon.

Inevitably, seeing so many families all around her put her in mind of her own family. There were still so many holes left in her memory, so many questions she had about her past that only the feathers could reveal. But the strongest memories she had were of happy days spent with her father and her brother. She would play pranks on her brother, and listen to her father's stories, happy and confident because she knew how much they loved her.

Where were they now? That was a memory she still hadn't retrieved, and she was afraid of the answer. A nagging suspicion was slowly growing on her that they were lost forever.

"Mmmmm! Sakura, do you smell that?" Mokona's voice broke through her sad thoughts.

She drew in a deep breath, and the sweet scent of freshly baked pastry flooded her lungs. "Oh, that smells so good! Can we try some?"

Kurogane tried to keep walking, but the others immediately turned around. "I don't see why not," Fai said.

Within moments, they all bit into the small pies a man at a nearby stall was selling. The crumbly crust instantly melted in Sakura's mouth, and the sweet, fruity syrup gushed into her mouth. She couldn't identify the flavor of the fruit, but it was the best pie she had ever tasted. The warmth spread out from her stomach, shooting down all the way to her toes.

"Yummy!" Mokona cried, opening his huge mouth and stuffing five more in.

"This is really good!" Syaoran cried, his cheeks bulging.

"Delectable," Fai agreed, licking the crumbs off his fingers. "An excellent choice, Princess Sakura."

They all looked at Kurogane, who had just opened his mouth to start on his second pie. He looked away awkwardly, then mumbled, "It's not bad."

Sakura smiled as they walked away from the pie stand, Kurogane nibbling on the pie and Fai poking him in the shoulder as he tried to get a rise out of him. She knew this warmth, heating her from the inside out. It was the way her father and brother had made her feel.

* * *

Syaoran smiled as they walked down the main path of the festival, looking around at the different attractions people had set up. He realized that even the vendors standing behind their wooden stalls wore the red ribbons around their wrists, tying them to a wife who helped them arrange their wares or a son who raised his voice to belt out announcements to passersby. Everyone here had a family.

Everyone except...

"Syaoran, is something wrong?"

Syaoran looked back in surprise to see Sakura watching him with concern. He quickly smiled at her and said, "Oh, nothing. Don't worry about me, Princess."

"Hey, cotton ball!" Kurogane called back to them. "Hurry up and find that feather, would you?"

"There's too much commotion everywhere," Mokona said, still smiling as cheerfully as ever. "Maybe we should try in one of the tents?"

"Hmm. What about that one?" Kurogane, Fai, and Sakura all said at the same time, pointing in three different directions.

Fai chuckled. "Well, this is getting us nowhere. Syaoran, why don't you pick?"

"Me?" Syaoran asked in surprise, then glanced around at the tents around him. He couldn't read this world's writing, so he had no idea what any of the signs meant. With a shrug, he picked a yellow and blue striped tent at random and led the way inside.

And came face-to-face with his clone.

Syaoran let out a yelp and jumped back, reaching for his sword...but then he realized that the other Syaoran had done the same. Kurogane snorted as he walked past him. "Scared of a mirror, are we?"

Feeling foolish, Syaoran let the tug on the ribbon lead him farther into the tent. A meandering path had been set up around the large tent with walls of canvas, and each wall was lined with mirrors of every shape and size. Though Kurogane huffed with impatience each time, they paused in front of several mirrors, laughing at the results. Some made them look skinny, some fat, some as wavy as if they were made of smoke. Some even turned their reflection upside-down.

Syaoran paused before a mirror, watching as one eye bulged outward in the reflection. It was his glass eye. The blank one, staring him down. It seemed to say, _You don't belong. Not really. You're different from everyone else. You've never belonged._

Everyone around him had a family, a history, a place where they had belonged at some point, if not now. But he didn't know where he came from, or even who he was. The man he considered his father wasn't really related to him, just a kind man who had taken pity on him. His father had taken care of him for a short time, giving him a place to call home. But even there, he'd known that he didn't really belong.

The sound of laughter broke Syaoran from his reverie. Sakura and Mokona were laughing as Fai held Kurogane in front of a mirror that made them look like huge round balls with tiny limbs sticking out on either side.

"Oh, Kurger-burger, you look so cuuuuute!" Fai sang out, pinching Kurogane's cheek.

The ribbon pulled them all along as Kurogane chased Fai out of the tent. Syaoran stumbled after them, smiling again. This was where he belonged now. Sakura had befriended him when they were children, welcoming him into her family. And now that extended to the others as well. These friends who accepted him without question and gave him a place where he could belong.

* * *

Fai skipped out of the mirror tent, laughing as Kurogane informed him at the top of his lungs how prolonged his death was going to be. He really needed to lighten up; they'd just come from a long procession of worlds where they'd had to fight for their very lives before they could gather the princess's feather. They deserved the respite this world offered.

He couldn't run too far ahead of Kurogane, of course; the red ribbon connecting their wrists kept Kurogane dangerously close. So, hoping to distract him, Fai ducked into a bright orange tent plastered with glittering golden stars. The four companions skidded to a halt in the center of the tent, dazzled by the mountains of color surrounding them on all sides.

Wigs of every shade, clothes of every description, even canes and wooden swords painted silver. Hats, shoes, capes, umbrellas. Fake noses and facial hair. Several families bustled around the tent, rummaging through the piles of costumes and climbing up onto a small stage at the back of the tent, where they all seemed to be participating in a disjointed play that didn't seem to hold to any sort of script. There was also a clown with a huge red nose taking pictures of families dressed in bizarre clothing.

"Yay! Dress-up!" Mokona immediately bounced out of Sakura's hood and grabbed a top hat, preening in front of one of the mirrors set up along one wall of the tent.

"Oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me..." Kurogane muttered to himself, but Fai dragged him along as they headed over to the nearest mound of costumes.

Sakura and Syaoran seemed to revert to childhood, laughing as they tried on various outfits. Kurogane stood as still and silent as a statue, crossing his arms and glowering at them all, but Fai ignored him and looked through the wigs. He pulled out one with long, golden tresses that he thought went very well with his complexion, and went over to the mirror to check his reflection.

He froze.

With a somewhat disheveled blonde wig straggling down to his waist, and one blue eye peeking out, he almost looked like...

Fai. His brother.

The others' laughter fell hollow on his ears as he stared at his mirror image, his twin. How long had it been since he had even _thought_ of his brother? The hole that seemed to run straight through his heart was so painful that he often tried to avoid it. But even though he spent so much time trying not to think about it, trying to fill his mind with cheerful thoughts and the task at hand...the knowledge of his guilt was always there, ready to spring to the forefront of his mind at a moment's notice.

Every time, it was a reminder that he was alone. There was no one left who knew him as Yui, who knew who he _truly_ was. No one except the man he was trying so desperately to avoid. And if no one knew him, then he was invisible. Completely, utterly alone.

"Hey, Goldilocks, hurry it up!"

Kurogane's irritated voice broke through Fai's thoughts. Only the meticulous practice Fai had maintained through this whole journey allowed him to immediately plaster his usual carefree smile back over his face as he turned to reply. But his mouth remained open as he looked at the others.

Grumpy but resigned, Kurogane scowled through the enormous fake beard he wore, clanking as he shifted in a full suit of armor. Syaoran itched his scalp under the enormous straw hat he wore, completing the image of a farmer. Sakura was adjusting the enormous feathered headdress she wore, and Mokona was hopping about buzzing loudly in a bumblebee costume probably intended for a baby.

With a laugh, Fai called, "Nearly ready!" He pulled a white robe over his head, then strapped on some ratty-looking fairy wings and grabbed a wooden wand with a star sparkling on the end. They shuffled over to the photographer together, then posed while the clown set up his camera. Fai put one hand on Kurogane's shoulder, raised his wand with the other, and smiled as though he had no cares in the world.

A puff of smoke later, the clown photographer handed them their photograph on a thick piece of paper. They were a mismatched group, none of them seeming to fit together. Sakura's headdress was slipping down over one eye as Mokona hopped on her head, Syaoran was still scratching his head, Kurogane was rolling his eyes with his arms crossed, and Fai looked utterly ridiculous as a fairy.

And yet...as Fai lifted his gaze from the photograph to his friends as they struggled out of their costumes, he felt a greater sense of peace than he'd known in a long time. They were all so different—they'd all come from different worlds, their temperaments were so varied...but they belonged together. Because they'd made a decision to stick together. And even if they'd made that decision for entirely different reasons, they were bound together as tightly as if they always wore a red ribbon.

Maybe it didn't matter that they didn't know who he was. They knew him as Fai, and even if they found out that he was actually Yui...maybe it wouldn't make a difference.

He hoped not, anyway.

* * *

"So here's a bright idea," Kurogane growled as he led the way from the nauseating dress-up tent. "Why don't we all remember the reason we _actually_ came here, and look for the feather?"

"Oh, I'm sure it's around here somewhere!" Fai said airily, waving his hand as though he hadn't a care in the world.

As if on cue, Kurogane stepped around the corner of a tall, thin tent and looked up to find himself staring at the feather.

"_Mekkyo!_" Mokona squeaked unnecessarily. They all came to a stop, staring up at a thin metal spire constructed in the middle of an empty space between all the tents. At the very top of the smooth steel pole sat a large glass sphere, containing a single white feather with the red markings that meant it was another of Sakura's memories.

Many families milled about the open square, chattering and laughing. A man wearing striped pants, a cloak with embroidered stars, and a shiny black top hat stepped up onto a small platform on one side of the square. He lifted a megaphone and called out over the hubbub, "All right, folks, let's begin! We all know what time it is—this Fall Family Festival's FAMILY CHALLENGE!"

Everyone cheered except for Kurogane and the others, though Fai clapped politely.

"As you all can see," the announcer continued in a boisterous voice, "this year's prize is the FEATHER OF FORTUNE! Be the first family to scale that pole and retrieve the feather, and you will be blessed with good fortune for the WHOLE YEAR!"

Kurogane rolled his eyes as everyone cheered again. "Not only are those the worst names I've ever heard, they've set up some kind of ridiculous game with the feather as the prize."

"But remember!" the announcer cautioned as the family nearest the pole started trying to climb it. "Take turns, and rely on TEAMWORK!"

As they edged their way through the crowd, they watched several families try their luck to no avail. Some tried to shimmy up the pole, only to slide all the way back to the ground. Others tried to give each other a boost, but the pole was too tall. One large family with six children tried to make a human pyramid, but they lost their balance and came crashing down in a heap with a huge puff of dust.

It seemed that each family only had one chance, so Kurogane knew when he stepped up to the pole that they had to get this right. They had to get this feather, or they wouldn't be able to move on to the next world, and then he'd _never_ return home!

Oddly, as he looked up at the imposing length of steel before him, his father's voice spoke in his ear. Before heading off to yet another battle, he had put his hand on Kurogane's shoulder and said, _A man is the head of his household, my son. And sometimes, he must bear the entire weight of his family on his own shoulders._ At the time, he'd meant it as a reminder that Kurogane's responsibilities waited for him at home, not on the battlefield.

Now, he looked back at his companions, who all returned his gaze with determined expressions. Strange. They weren't family at all, so why did he feel a sudden weight of responsibility?

He dropped to one knee in the dust, bracing himself with one hand against the cold steel. "We'll have to climb on each other's shoulders," he said, then shot each of them a glare. "And nobody fall off."

They clambered up, one by one. He waited patiently as he felt their weight pressing down harder and harder on his shoulders. They were heavy, but he could handle it. Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself to his feet to make them as tall as possible. He craned his neck back and saw that they needed to be just a few feet taller. Sakura reached as far as she could, standing on the very tips of her toes on Syaoran's shoulders, but it was far out of reach. If only they weren't so heavy, maybe he could jump the rest of the way...

But they had all forgotten the last member of their little family. Mokona emerged from somewhere inside Sakura's cloak, pattered up the length of Sakura's arm, and nudged the orb just slightly with the very tip of his paw. The orb plummeted to the ground, and the people standing nearest leapt back in alarm as it shattered on the ground.

Sakura started at the sound of breaking glass, and lost her balance. They all cried out as they collapsed in a heap on the ground, but once the dust cleared they found that none of them were hurt beyond a few scrapes and bruises. Mokona hopped over to where the feather lay amid shards of glass, and brought it back to Sakura. As usual, the feather slid through Sakura's chest with a brilliant glow, and she instantly fell unconscious.

Cheers broke out all around them, and everyone was congratulating them on the good fortune they would enjoy for the rest of the year. Kurogane thought it was all ridiculous, because they weren't a family at all.

Were they?


End file.
